William Eric Brown

Lives and works in New York, NY

Artist statement

I work in series using various media; works on paper, sculpture, photography and unique artists books. I find myself places and I wonder how I arrived there. This first most recent series here, Stationed, is exploring a deeper and darker space. A reproduced image of an airport is printed, collaged, floating in a vast ground of dark, a horizon line appears (sometimes), color as atmosphere breaking through, the airport becomes a space station, unmoored from any earthly context, reimagined as a vessel, on a journey, an imagined version of a future once held. In this second series shown, Atka, I work from 35mm slides shot by my father during the 1960s while he served aboard a U.S. Navy icebreaker of the same name in Antarctica. These archival images—quiet, remote, and eerily timeless—serve as both personal and historical documents. I print them onto multiple sheets of Rives BFK paper, physically seaming them together to suggest fracture, reconstruction, and continuity. Onto these surfaces, I layer spray-painted shapes and diagrammatic marks, interrupting the photographic image with gestures that hint at mapping, targeting, or erasure. This process allows me to reframe the original narrative and draw out new meanings—ones shaped by a growing unease with the climate crisis and the persistent traces of militarized presence in remote landscapes. The isolation and desolation embedded in these photographs resonate differently today; their once-objective stillness now feels burdened...

Artwork